Texas Tech football: What we think we know about Red Raiders after Spring football

Tech is in great shape at the QB spot

Nothing we saw in the spring did a thing to change our belief that Tech has two rock-solid options at the QB spot.  With senior Tyler Shough and redshirt sophomore Behren Morton both back after each had a stint as QB1 last season, it could be argued that the Red Raiders are in the best position that they have been in at the game’s most important spot since the end of the Leach years.

Sure, we thought the same entering last season given that Shough and Morton were in the mix along with Donovan Smith (now a Houston Cougar) but there is more certainty this year when it comes to what the Tech signal callers can do in actual game situations.

Making five starts and winning each last fall, Shough is expected to enter the fall as the starter given the four-game winning streak he led the Red Raiders to at the end of 2022.  In that stretch, he was not always flashy with just a 5: 2 TD: INT ratio and only one game of over 250 yards passing.

However, his excellence came in the area of intangibles.  It just seemed as if the team took on Shough’s uber-confident mentality with the former Oregon transfer at the helm.  After he returned from a collarbone injury suffered in week one, he guided Tech to gritty wins over Kansas, Iowa State, and Oklahoma before earning MVP honors in the Texas Bowl win over Ole Miss.

But most importantly, he showed that he can play a rugged brand of football and avoid the serious injuries that befell him in 2021 and 2022.  Showing no signs of being tentative despite his back-to-back collarbone breaks, he carried the ball 60 times for 264 yards and 3 TDs during the season-ending four-game winning streak.  That included 25 carries for 111 yards in the bowl game.  In other words, toughness is not an issue for Shough.  Now, he just has to string together a full season of health.

Meanwhile, Morton showed that he has the type of arm talent that few Red Raider QBs have ever possessed.  Facing perhaps the toughest stretch of the schedule in his four starts, he began with two performances of 325 or more yards passing.  He also displayed an uncanny ability to make things happen when plays break down, something that was essential given the struggles of his blockers.  But he must cut down on the turnovers after tossing six picks in just nine appearances last year.

Still, this QB duo is as good as any team in the Big 12 will boast this fall.  (Don’t buy the hype surrounding the UT QBs who are famous for being famous and not for anything they’ve done on the field thus far.)  Head coach Joey McGuire believes both Shough and Morton have NFL futures and it is easy to see why.  So long as Tech doesn’t have to rely on a third starting QB in 2023 (which isn’t a given after the last two seasons), there’s no reason to think that this team will be anything but solid at that spot this fall and that’s exciting.